The combined aromas of burning charcoal, pastry bread, and savory chicken drifted from a hot stove before escaping as pale fumes through a shuttered window overlooking a nighttime cityscape. Guards and knights in rattling armor patrolled broad roads. They searched Malten’s castle district for arson conspirators.

Unlike the chaotic city streets, the kitchen on the second floor of Vogel’s Enchantments stood quiet. Only crackling fuel and the sizzling of baking poultry could be heard. Although the chicken pie would soon be ready, no one so much as licked their lips. A surgeon and three of the store’s resident sorceresses watched a round table instead.

On its oak surface lay a weapon no person from Earth could consider a gun. Comprising a long iron pipe and a wooden stock, the voltech rifle didn’t even have a trigger. The firing mechanism was a seal embedded in its grip. Only a mage could operate the device.

But the otherworldly engineering wasn’t what captured Dimitry’s attention. His gaze fixed onto the voltech rifle’s aura—an accelall enchantment’s flickering rainbow hues. They melded and fused into one another, coating the weapon in endlessly shifting molten colors. If two gray-glowing dispelia mitts didn’t lie at either end, the aura would be fatal to all nearby.

How could something so beautiful be so dangerous?

And yet it was.

An accellal enchantment, no bigger than a finger's worth of cotton strip, killed a chicken—the product of a single vol pellet. To imbue the entire voltech rifle, however, Leona consumed over a dozen. Her doubtless deadly creation resulted from incremental weaving trials.

The goal was to enhance voltech rifles by accelerating their projectiles through an accelall enchantment’s temporal field. Since Dimitry intended to produce one weapon for every combat sorceress in Malten, he had to be efficient with resources. That was why he initially asked Leona to enchant only the base of the barrel—where the iron pellet lay—to minimize vol and money expenditure while reducing the wielder’s chance of accidental exposure to a lethal aura. To further decrease potential danger, he wrapped a gold-glowing reflectia towelette around the rainbow aura to prevent its hazardous time acceleration effects from leaking into the surroundings.

The result was an enchanted voltech rifle that allowed for safe handling. However, when Angelika fired it, an iron pellet didn’t blast out of the barrel like he hoped. It rolled out instead. His new weapon was much weaker than its predecessor.

A result contrary to Dimitry’s expectations.

His initial postulation was that accelall allowed nearby forces to act quicker, creating amplified effects once they left the enchantment’s temporal field. And further experimentation proved that. Candles burned faster, extinguished sooner, and emitted colored light with higher frequencies near accelall. Most important, however, was that their fires radiated unusual blistering heat just beyond the magic’s area of influence—the amplified effect Dimitry predicted.

His hypothesis was correct.

So why did the voltech rifle’s iron pellets roll out instead of firing with a sonic boom? They did when Dimitry cast accelall on Angelika back in Waira. What was different?

The problem must have been some other, unknown factor.

Hoping that enchanting the voltech rifle further would fix the issue, he asked Leona to incrementally weave more of the weapon with accelall. The rainbow aura consumed more of the device with every consecutive firing failure. It crawled down the entire barrel, then the stock, and finally the grip. Now, a thoroughly enchanted device lay on the round table.

Stood against the wall, Angelika pumped the neckline of her crimson robe to fan away a nearby stove’s overwhelming heat. Her orange eyes studied the rifle. “I want to try shooting it and all, but how am I supposed to do that?”

“We’ll just cover it up again.” Dimitry lifted the gold-glowing towelette they handled all evening. “Reflectia kept the enchantment contained before. Why wouldn’t it now?”

“That’s not the problem.” Leona’s sidewards glance returned to the black, squash-like vegetable she mashed over a marble counter. “The rifle is still safe to carry, but she can’t fire it anymore.”

“Why not?”

Lying her head sideways on the round table, the youngest sister’s messy brown locks spilled over the furniture’s oak surface. Emilia pointed to a wooden block planted in the voltech rifle’s grip. “That.”

She referred to a core seal. Twisting blue lines, figures, and solidified gel pools ravined its rectangular face. Like the rest of the weapon, it had a rainbow glow.

Although the mechanics that governed seals were unknown to Dimitry, the snoozia canister he bought in Ravenfall revealed their function: they allowed the user to cast a specific spell. However, to do so, the user’s palm had to touch the seal—a dangerous prospect when it carried an accelall enchantment.

Dimitry frowned. “I’m guessing we can’t just wrap the reflectia towelette around the seal because it’ll block it?”

“That’s part of it,” Angelika said. “Reflectia stops all magic from passing through. I can’t feed vol through it. The only way for me to use the voltech rifle’s propelia seal is to hold it directly, but now that it’s enchanted with accelall and after seeing what happened to that chicken, I’d rather not.”

Leona looked back, a rare smirk on her face. “The worst part is that Angelika wouldn’t make anywhere near as delicious of a pie if something went wrong.”

“Oh, shut up.”

The scarlet-haired woman giggled. “I was just kidding.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Angelika glanced at the rainbow-glowing rifle, then leaned an arm onto Dimitry’s shoulder. “So, Mr. Surgeon. What next? Any more bright ideas?”

Try as he might, nothing else came to mind. “Not right now.”

She clicked her teeth. “Can’t win them all, I guess.”

Dimitry’s hand reached to massage his forehead as the realization of failure sank deeper into his stomach. He had high hopes for empowered voltech rifles. They would have made combat sorceresses like Angelika more efficient, improving their ability to dispatch heathens and uphold Malten’s safety. His friends’ safety. Dimitry’s safety.

But that didn’t mean his efforts were pointless. Further experimentation at another time could reveal the answers he sought. And, even if it didn’t, accelall enchantments would doubtless improve the capabilities of non-magic weapons like flintlock muskets and cannons once he produced them. The research remained worth pursuing.

Angelika stretched and yawned. “Can I disenchant my rifle now? It’ll be hard to guard you if it just rolls out iron pellets.”

“Sure.” He inhaled deeply. “We can try again when we’re less busy.”

“Wait.” The quiet word escaped Emilia’s mouth.

Looking over her shoulder while dicing something, Leona’s orange eyes opened wide. “Did you figure something out?”

“Not yet,” Emilia said, “but I think we’re close.”

Her words rekindled Dimitry’s hope. His appreciation for the girl’s competence intensified by the moment.

Angelika ran up to Emilia and hugged her from behind. “What is it? What’ll make me the strongest sorceress in Malten?!”

“Enchanting the seal was a good idea. We just need to figure out how to activate it. It might be possible.”

“Are you sure?” Leona asked. “A busy man like Dimitry can’t waste his whole day here.”

“It’ll work.” Emilia paused. “Probably.”

Dimitry sat back in his chair. “Can you explain?”

She pointed at the carved wooden block entrenched in the voltech rifle’s grip. “The coil runs vol through the manipulator until the coalescence is charged. But the transducer doesn’t release the energy right away. Accelall slows the process further. That’s why propelia was weaker than usual when we fired the voltech rifle. Probably.”

Dimitry tried to grasp her thoughts but failed.

“Wait,” Angelika said. “Why does accelall slow the transducer?”

Although Leona continued cooking, her distracted gaze indicated that she focused on the conversation.

The onslaught of new vocabulary confused Dimitry. “I’m not sure I follow. Can we take it one step at a time?”

As if trying to calm a hyperactive mind, Emilia took a deep breath. Then, she pointed to random spots on the core seal. “The coils can only transport so much vol through the manipulator. I can try making the rails wider, but it’ll lead to more exhaust, and not all the magic will be coded. And there’s still the problem with the transducer—”

Although the girl’s lips continued to move, Dimitry could no longer hear their words. Either two days without sleep exhausted him, or Emilia gave poor explanations. Perhaps a combination of the two.

He glanced at Leona.

As if understanding his plight, she smiled, set down her chopping knife, and strode into an adjacent room. There was a metal canister in her hand when she returned. Her scarlet hair—smelling of perfume sweet and creamy—fell over Dimitry’s shoulder when she leaned in. “I may not be as knowledgeable as an inscriber like Emilia, but I’ll explain to the best of my ability.”

Leona pointed to a solidified pool of blue gel on top of the canister’s core seal. “This is the coalescence. It stores vol coded to a spell. Sinkia, in this case.” Her fingernail, covered in uneven pink nail polish, traveled upwards. “These two rails are the transducers. They drain the vol from a full coalescence and release it as a spell. Emilia thinks that the accelall enchantment somehow slows that process down, weakening propelia.”

Dimitry stroked his chin. From what he understood, the coalescence was the magic equivalent to a battery or a capacitor. It filled itself with vol before the transducers transferred that energy to the outside world.

“That makes more sense. How about all of this?” He pointed to the swerving blue lines and figures beneath the coalescence.

She brushed her radiant, scarlet hair behind her ear. “Those are the manipulator and the coils. The manipulator codes vol into a specific spell while the coils transfer it from your palm’s core to the coalescence. Does… that make sense?”

What she spoke of were essentially circuits with added steps.

Dimitry glanced at the patient woman. She may not have been a proficient warrior like Angelika or a genius like Emilia, but she was someone of equal importance—a natural teacher. “It does. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” Leona placed the canister onto the table before returning to the kitchen counter.

Dimitry leaned back into his chair, studying the device’s core seal. While the coalescence and transducers functioned as magical batteries, based on what the sorceress said, they didn’t transfer their energy as fast as an electrical circuit. There was a noticeable delay.

That meant a voltech rifle’s core seal applied propelia to the iron ball piecemeal. The spell didn’t transfer the forward force all at once. While the delayed transfer of energy didn’t prevent the bullet from flying full speed in a typical situation, their situation wasn’t typical. Anything inside the accelall enchanted barrel experienced more time, and therefore any outside force acting on the iron ball within would be weaker.

That was why they had to enchant the core seal with accelall as well as the barrel. If they didn’t, the magical ‘battery’ would release its energy too slowly, causing the bullet to roll out of position before it could receive the full brunt of propelia’s forward force.

Did Emilia figure that out already?

Dimitry glanced at the quiet girl with messy brown hair sitting across the round table. Although he wanted the seventeen-year-old genius to work for him before, he needed her now. She was irreplaceable. But that was a process he couldn’t rush. Emilia would have to accept his offer of her own volition.

“Hey,” Angelika said. “Why is everyone quiet all of a sudden?”

Leona pressed a slender finger to her lips. “Let them think.”

“Now there are two damned geniuses. Guess I’ll just wait this one out.” She glanced over her elder sister’s shoulder. “How’s the food coming?”

“It’ll be ready soon.”

Dimitry’s gaze returned to the voltech rifle’s core seal, whose patterns of lines and swerves differed from the canister’s. He had to enchant it with accelall while somehow making it safe for a combat sorceress to touch. His eyes traveled down the seal. From the transducer to the coalescence and across the combined coil and manipulator mesh.

He had an idea.

Cautious excitement rose within Dimitry. “Hey, Emilia.”

The girl looked up.

Dimitry pointed to the upper portion of the seal, which functioned as a battery. “The coalescence automatically pumps coded vol into the transducer when it’s full, right?”

She nodded.

“And the coil and manipulator merely code the vol and transfer it from the user’s palm to the coalescence?”

“Yes.”

“I was wondering if we could split the core seal into two. If we enchant only the coalescence and transducer with accelall, they’ll still release the spell quickly. We can keep the coils and manipulator unenchanted and somewhere Angelika can hold—perhaps on the grip. That way, she can transfer vol into the seal while not coming in contact with accelall.”

Emilia’s mouth creaked open. “That won’t work, but…” her voice trailed off, and her orange eyes shot across the ceiling as if painting a masterpiece with laser vision.

“Did you figure something out?” Angelika blurted. She shook her younger sister’s shoulders. “Please, tell me you’ve figured something out!”

Leona carried a bowl of mixed vegetables. “Instead of bothering her, help me set the table.”

“Emilia, you’ve got an idea, don’t you? If you make this Church crap usable with accelall, I’ll do whatever you want for a month. No, two! Three!”

Dimitry’s eyes furrowed. “Church crap?”

“Core and circuit seals are Church inventions,” Leona said. “We don’t even know all the calling signs, let alone how to produce inscribing ink.”

Calling signs? Inscribing ink? Dimitry’s budding thoughts scattered when Emilia jumped out of her chair and dashed out of the kitchen. “Where’s she going?”

“She’ll be back.” Leona lowered a metal tray upholding a piping hot chicken pie. She sliced the round pastry and set it onto plates. “I hope I didn’t make you wait hungry for too long.”

Angelika cleared the room of magical goods and pushed three of the four chairs around the dining table close together, leaving extra space for the fourth. “Dimitry, you’ll have to sit right next to Leona and me.”

“I don’t mind, but why?”

When Emilia returned, she carried a warped block of wood in one hand and a satchel of clanging tools in her other, which she dropped beside her plate. She nibbled pie in between brief woodworking sessions. Her table manners were likely the worst this medievalesque world had ever seen.

“You can do it, you absolute monster!” Angelika shouted with mouthfuls of food. “Inscribe that seal!”

Like a snapping turtle, Emilia’s head shot forward with every bite to preserve her hands for carving work.

Leona poked a silent Dimitry’s shoulder. “Aren’t you going to eat? Did you want something else?”

As if that was the issue.

Winter gales cut across a sparse forest’s canopy, rustling the leaves of undressing trees with every pass. The trunks of mighty oaks stood upright, and yellow grass carpeted the soil. Only occasional patches of barren dirt dotted the withering greenery, often beside the husks of recently deceased stone beasts. Unlike the territory west of Malten—the direction most heathens invaded from—the land north of the city’s walls remained fertile.

Aside from black midnight skies and teal clouds, three things stood out in the dark green expanse: the half-moon hovering overhead, a gold-glowing experimental voltech rifle in a combat sorceress’s arms, and the crawling devil corpse by her feet.

Like a cross between a giant daddy long legs and a crab, two of the heathen’s six cottage-height legs lay shattered. Bright blue goo spilled from its spherical core. Equally blue engravings swerved and circled and intersected across its carapace and legs. In some ways, its body resembled a far more complex seal.

Were the two related? Perhaps the Church developed and designed voltech equipment with heathens in mind. After all, ‘nature’ and the environment fueled human creativity unlike anything else.

While intriguing, Dimitry discarded the thought.

There were more urgent matters at hand.

He glanced at the weapon Angelika held. Every time he wondered how well it would perform, anticipation and excitement rose and erupted within his chest. Sometimes he envisioned the iron pellet bursting out at supersonic speeds. Other times, the bullet would feebly roll out of the barrel like it had all night. He didn’t know what to expect.

However, one thing was certain.

The long and twisting core seal the resident inscriber made was a world first. It ran from the voltech rifle’s grip to the base of its stock, the accelall enchanted coalescence and transducer out of sight. Uncertain how it would function, Emilia recommended conducting the first firing experiment outside Malten—far from prying eyes and ears.

Although the decision broke Leona’s heart since she had to stay behind to mind the store, the youngest sister’s judgment was for the best.

It was too early to reveal accelall’s existence to the public, especially when its rainbow-colored enchantment resembled that of a Church’s heathen barrier. Dimitry had to introduce it carefully. Tactfully. But first, he would confirm the weapon’s effectiveness.

Angelika held up the voltech rifle. A reflectia towelette’s golden aura entombed most of its surface. Only the unenchanted muzzle and exposed manipulator and coil mesh lay exposed. She examined it. “Are you sure this… thing is safe?”

Sat on a nearby boulder, Emilia shrugged.

“I hope I don’t lose an organ or something,” the combat sorceress mumbled.

Along with anxiety and uncertainty, Dimitry felt unease asking a teenager to test a weapon with dubious safety. “Can’t you activate the core seal from far away? Like Leona weaves enchantments? It’ll be safer.”

Emilia shook her head. “The seal has to touch her palm’s core.”

He frowned. “In that case, let me shoot it first. Just in case.”

“Stand back, surgeon.” Angelika smirked. “If you hurt your delicate hands, who’s going to run your hospital? Taking on danger is my job. I’ll handle this.”

“Are you sure?”

She waved him away. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Dimitry took several hesitant steps back. “If anything feels off, get rid of the voltech rifle.”

“What are you, my mom?”

No, but he was old enough to be her father. “Just promise me.”

“Fine, fine.”

Emilia fixed her gaze onto her older sibling’s crimson robe. “Good luck, sis.”

Angelika struggled to grip the blue engravings. “How the hell am I supposed to hold this thing?”

“Channel the vol into the ends of the elongated coil’s rails,” Emilia said. “Otherwise, it won’t work.”

“Ow!”

The accumulated nervous energy within Dimitry erupted all at once, making him stride forward. “Are you alright?”

“Relax.” Angelika shook her hand. “It’s just a splinter.”

“Sorry,” Emilia said. “I rushed the smoothing.”

Unsure if his gut feeling was that of relief or impending doom, he stepped back once more.

Angelika rolled an iron pellet into her rifle, retrieved vol from her crimson robe’s pocket, and aimed at the crawling devil corpse a meter away. “You guys ready?”

Heart racing and with locked breaths, Dimitry’s gaze focused on her weapon. The test could result in anything from tragedy to triumphant success. In the latter case, it was best to lower the risk of tinnitus from a sonic boom. “Emilia, cover your ears.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain afterward.”

“’Kay.” The inscriber pressed her hands to the sides of her head.

Dimitry did the same and inhaled deeply. “Ready.”

Angelika rolled her shoulders and adjusted the voltech rifle’s barrel towards her target’s spherical stone core. Her hind leg, full of energy, continued to tap the ground restlessly. She took a deep breath.

“Propelia.”

A loud crack echoed through the sparse forest.

Although the sonic boom was weaker than when he cast accelall on Angelika in Waira’s cache, that did nothing to quell Dimitry’s dopamine rush. The iron pellet didn’t roll out the barrel like before. It reached supersonic speeds.

He succeeded.

Emilia glanced at Dimitry, her mouth ajar. “The sound. Why? How did you…”

A victorious grin spread across his face. “Stop by the cathedral if you want to find out. But for now, let’s go see the damage.”

The girl trailed behind him.

When they joined Angelika, all of three of them studied the unfortunate target—a downed crawling devil that sustained additional gaping wounds on either side of its spherical stone core.

But the bullet didn’t stop there: its momentum was too great. The iron pellet buried itself in the nearby soil.

Angelika snapped out of her stupor. “Did you guys see that? That was insane.”

Emilia’s gaze traveled from the heathen to the hole in the ground, and finally to the gold-glowing voltech rifle in her sister’s hands. “My turn.”

“Nope.” Angelika loaded another iron pellet. “We have to save vol for the night of repentance.”

“Then why are you wasting it?”

“Wasting it?” She smirked. “This is training.”

“You hypocrite. Let me try!” Emilia lunged at her sister.

Angelika thrust out her knee to use as a shield. “You’ll have your chance later.”

Dimitry watched in horror as the two wrestled over an object that barely contained a lethal accelall enchantment. “Can you two stop? If that reflectia towelette comes off, you’ll—”

“Then tell her to go away!”

“It’s my invention!” Emilia’s voice was louder than ever.

“And it’s my rifle!”

The cantering of an approaching horse ended their squabble.

Someone in glowing armor rode the beast’s back. The red and gold breastplate hinted it was one of Malten’s knights.

Dimitry stepped in front of the girls. He didn’t know the warrior’s intentions, but the cry of a collapsing sound barrier and two sorceresses fighting over a glowing gun in an otherwise quiet nighttime forest would undoubtedly attract unwanted attention. Attention that inspired too many questions.

He took precautions. “Both of you. No matter what they ask, don’t tell them about accelall. If they find out we’re using a Church-like enchantment in secret, I doubt any of us will be any better off.”

“It won’t be that bad.” Angelika pointed to a large cloth draped over the horse’s back. “That’s the Kuhn family’s heraldic banner on the caparison. It’s probably Valter.”

The name was familiar.

Emilia nodded. “He’s cool.”

“Still, don’t tell him anything,” Dimitry said. “I’ll do it when the time is right. Understood?”

“Wasn’t going to, anyway.” Angelika lowered her rifle.

The well-dressed steed trotted closer. When it stopped, the broad-shouldered knight riding on top sheathed his heathen blood-coated rock hammer into a layered sack beside the horse’s torso. He lifted his helmet’s visor to reveal a handsome face tarnished only by the scar cutting across its cheek.

Emilia bowed. “My lord.”

Valter smiled a benevolent smile. “Vogels, Jade Surgeon. Is all well?”

Seeing the youthful man in person jogged Dimitry’s memory. Valter visited the hospital for a plague cure back when it was a small church full of modified preservia blankets. The knight’s mannerisms were gentler than that of his father, Marquis Richter.

“We’re fine,” Angelika said. “How about you? Kill anything today?”

“Just crawling devils trampling the coast.”

“More than last month again?”

“I’m afraid so,” Valter said in a troubled tone. His eyes shifted to the weapon in Angelika’s hands. “Is that a voltech rifle in a reflectia sack?”

“This? It’s a…” Angelika’s voice trailed off.

“It’s a failed experiment,” Dimitry said. “We were trying something new.”

“Ah. Is it more of that magic father told me about?” Valter dismounted the horse with one swooping motion. “He said you possessed spells that could uncover lies and tame aquatic demons. I didn’t believe it at first, but I haven’t seen a fishman in over a week. Am I wrong to believe that thunderclap I heard is yet more of your magic? It came from your direction.”

Emilia’s head tilted. “Tamed the aquatic demons?”

Angelika elbowed her sister.

Although Dimitry could have easily deluded the knight, it was wise not to. The unnecessary lie would hurt his reputation once everyone learned of the modified voltech rifle’s supersonic capabilities. “Yes, that was us.”

“I may be a fool when it comes to magic, but I too am interested in the Jade Surgeon’s wizardry. Would you demonstrate it for me?”

“Unfortunately, it isn’t ready. It’s still too dangerous.”

“Is that so?” Valter stepped on the heathen’s corpse, disassembling its fragmented remnants with a steel boot. “Was it your thunder that pierced the crawling devil’s shell? It seems quite powerful.”

“It is powerful, but we can’t properly control it yet.” Dimitry appealed to the knight’s chivalry. “Until we figure out how, I don’t want to risk these young sorceresses getting hurt by accident.”

“I would never suggest otherwise.” Valter stroked his horse’s nose with a gauntlet reflecting the moon’s green light. “ I’m confident Mira and Her Majesty would be delighted to learn of your… thunder rifle bag. Do you think it’ll be ready by the summit?”

“What summit?”

“There’s one on the third evening before every night of repentance,” Angelika said. “Mom goes every month.”

Valter’s eyes furrowed. “Everyone involved in the city’s defense attends, including myself. Since you are the new court doctor, I thought surely you would as well.”

Dimitry stroked his chin. That was only two days from now. If he didn’t reveal the Voltech hand cannon at the summit, Valter would instead. The loose-lipped knight already blabbered about aquatic demons to an unknowing Emilia—he wasn’t the type who could keep a secret.

But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe Dimitry could use the man’s disclosing nature to his advantage. If he planned carefully, the aspect of the rifle that garnered the most suspicion—its Church-like rainbow aura—could become a boon that solidified his position as a religious authority instead of his downfall. And Valter’s praise would only help.

People’s perception lay in the way he framed the new invention.

Dimitry smiled. “The thunder rifle bag will certainly be ready by then. Look forward to it.”